Dismantling Indio's gangs

15 months spent investigating, planning massive sweep

Dec. 11, 2010

8:46 a.m.: A man with a Penn West gang tattoo on the back of his head is in custody and taken out of a car after arriving at the Incident Command Post in Indian Wells on Tuesday during Operation Eastern Encore, a 15-month investigation ending in a police raid involving more than 1,000 federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers. / Crystal Chatham The Desert Sun

5:25 a.m. Michael Jeandron with the District Attorney’s office, (from left) Indio police Chief Brad Ramos and District Attorney Rod Pacheco talk before Tuesday morning’s briefing to law enforcement agents at the Incident Command Post at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells. / Crystal Chatham The Desert Sun

Get exclusive coverage of the sweep at mydesert.com/easternencore

Watch law enforcement officials and community residents talk about their experiences during Operation Eastern Encore in Indio on Tuesday at mydesert.com/video.

More than 100 photographs that document the day of tactical law enforcement raids including new photos from behind the scenesCopies of the county and federal injunctions in .pdf form

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Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco didn't want to lose the momentum that he saw building against gangs in Riverside County.

Pacheco's team of investigators and deputy DAs had just completed the county's largest gang offensive to date — March 2009's Operation Falling Sun, which resulted in 120 arrests and gang injunctions restricting two Desert Hot Springs gangs.

“After Falling Sun was done, we had to figure out what we were going to do with this team,” Pacheco said. “Were they all going back to their previous assignments?”

He held a meeting with Falling Sun team members, including the FBI.

“We wanted to keep the team going, share resources from our department and the FBI and find other things to do,” Pacheco said. “In public safety you don't want for work. There's always work.”

Enter Indio police Chief Bradley Ramos.

amos saw possibilities to address gangs in Indio, some of the oldest and most notorious in the Coachella Valley.

“We need to keep that gang element at bay and out of our community,” he said. “We'd done a really good job displacing our criminal street gangs. But we needed that pressure on.”

Ramos approached Pacheco in the summer of 2009. What resulted was Operation Eastern Encore, a 15-month investigation culminating in a Dec. 7 police raid involving more than 1,000 federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers.

The operation netted 168 arrests of suspected gang members, seizure of more than 100 guns, and an injunction against three city gangs.

“The outcome is going to significantly help make our community safe and send a message,” Ramos said. “The message is, ‘We're not going to tolerate gangs in Indio.'”

Desert Sun investigative reporter Keith Matheny had exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to the planning and execution of the largest gang raid in Riverside County history